Farm

Ouch, is it quicksand?

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It has been a long two days already and there is one more left in the weekend.  First thing Friday and Saturday I got out of bed, made coffee and went out to spray fields.  We are trying to eradicate the star thistle and other thistles.  So I am spraying 2-4-d and Milestone on the fields and so is Mr Professional, between the two of us hopefully we will have it finished this week.  I keep running out of spray, last year we didn’t buy hardly any spray which may explain why we are spending so much this year.  I suspect we will end up with about $1500 worth of chemicals on the property, for around 70 acres.  The amount of rain we have gotten this year is causing the weeds to just keep coming out of the ground.  This has led me to the conclusion that the battery I got for the side by side is too small.  We keep having to use the external battery to jump start it.  I should have just gotten the kit that allows me to install a large marine deep cycle battery under the driver’s seat.  I will be doing that and getting a new battery that will just fit in the battery holder.  I need as much battery as I can get, even the trickle charger is not helping.

I did have to pump up the front right tire on the tractor on Friday.  I suspect I may have run over a nail.  I still need to replace the left front tire rim and both front tires are the originals and are almost 8 years old.  We now park the tractor in the machine shop but it used to sit out most of its life In the weather and sun which is reflected in the tire condition. It is time to get new ones.

Annmarie and I spent the late morning spreading out the rest of our ground cover tire bark on Friday and she took me to town to feed me lunch so we could get the rest of the parts needed to install a drip line on all the berries.  The berries and the lavender are both now on timers and drip lines.  We have about 20 bags of tire chips leftover.  I want to get the greenhouse up and use it on the floor as a heat sink.  Our wheat fields should be harvested next week.  I love the wheat when it is at this stage, I think it is at its most beautiful.

We spent Saturday morning fixing the drip lines on three herb containers in the back garden and I finished spraying the far field.  After breakfast and conversation with my mother I went out and put away the baler in the machine shed and decided to go up to the second field and dig more ditches.  The ditches I dug last week had water running in them and the surrounding ground has firmed up nicely.  I would like to move some dirt and fix all the runnels in the field that the flooding caused but there is still a pretty wet spot in the middle of the field.  My plan was to just dig some interconnecting ditches to help the water flow better.  I took flags with me and walked around the wet area and marked the borders so when it dried out I would know what was going to be super wet ground again in the spring.  I have pretty much convinced myself I am going to have to install pecker poles, some people call them vineyard poles, they are only 2” around and pressure treated.  I can drive them into the ground and they should stay for about 7 years.  I need to know where it is wet when I am cutting hay so I don’t inadvertently get out into the mud.

Why you ask would I like to avoid the mud?  Well it is wet and sometimes the bottom of the mud hole is hard to find.  I started to dig right at the top of a running waterway and got the front tires stuck.  I tried to back out and push out with the bucket but the bucket kept sinking and not finding a lot of firm ground.  I then went forward deeper into the hole and tried to pull myself forward with the bucket.  This let me get forward another three feet which put me nose down into a hole.  I was at the far end of the property and had no tools or vehicles except for two railroad ties laying over by the gates.  I had seen them there and was saving them for use later.  I hoofed it over and grabbed the first one, put it on my left should and walked the 200 feet to the tractor.  It was heavy and I could feel it digging into my skinny shoulder.  I wedged it under the front left tire and went back for the second one.  I simply could not squat down and get it up on my right shoulder, damn thing was over 100# and I was hot and tired.  So I put one end of the tie on a cross beam about three feet off the ground, lifted the other end and got under it.  I hoisted it onto my right shoulder and made it about 50 feet before saying no way and tossing it on the ground.  Mind you I think the tractor is sinking into the mud as I mess around with the railroad tie.  I grabbed a 3/8 chain I keep on the tractor and wrapped it around one end, made a yoke by hooking the other end to the tie, stepped in and started to pull it toward the tractor.  I was able to use my legs and whole body to move the railroad tie and got it to the tractor, I tossed it under the right front tire and a piece of cattle panel went under the back tires.  Nope, all this did was cause the ties to stand up when the front tires starting putting weight on them.  I needed a shovel to dig out a horizontal path for the tie.


I was keeping the tractor running because when I manipulated the bucket the front end of the tractor would fall into the water submerging the exhaust pipe.  My next trick was to pull out one of the ties and lay it just in front of the bucket.  The tie was wider than the hole I made so I figured I could push off the tie with the bucket.  This may have worked but when I lifted the bucket I rolled the tie toward me.

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I wanted it to be in just the perfect spot, unfortunately I rolled it too close and was unable to push off of it with the bucket.  I could kinda keep the front end out of the water only.  I then took the other tie and tried to get it under the front of the tractor.  Nope, it was just sinking faster and now the exhaust pipe was fully submerged.

In desperation I jumped off the tractor and gabbed the closet railroad tie and tried to stick in under the bucket at 90 degree angle to the other tie.  I figured the bucket could easily push off of that but I was not fast enough.  I tossed it quickly as the tractor had blue smoke coming out of it and was making a funny noise.  I tried to use the bucket to push me up but had to just turn off the ignition before I sucked water into the engine.  I had managed to get stuck more than any other time in the tractor’s life or my experience.  I called a friend, Mr Richard Hemphill who came out, looked at it and went back to get a bigger tractor.

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I tried to take a nap while waiting but surprisingly the ground was very warm with the sun beating down on the ground.  I gave up and drank more coffee.  The very large tractor showed up, we hooked the tow strap on and it just pulled me out of the ground!  Once out Richard said start it, I had to dig mud out of the exhaust pipe first and since the water never got to the air intake I fired it up and it started on the first try!

I spent over an hour with a hose getting all the mud off the tractor and out of the radiator.  There was mud caked all over the engine and both side of the radiator.  I am going to leave it to dry overnight and will move it in the morning.  I will be done with the tractor until I get new tires, the front right tire is flat again.

On the plus side, my baler part from Italy will be here in two weeks!

 

Weed wars & Water ways

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Since I could not cut more hay it was decided that I would spray weeds on Saturday.  The plan was for me to get up early and do this.  I did not get up early, I cooked and ate breakfast, learned from Annmarie that she heard the enemy, racoons, chittering through our bedroom window at 0400.  I suspect they were eating cat food from our back porch.  I have not seen them since our initial skirmish.

I had to call Mr Professional to get the side by side started.  He had not plugged the trickle charger onto the battery so it was low.  I used the external portable battery jumper and it fired right up.  I managed to put about 50 gallons on the ground before the wind picked up and it was time to stop.

It was only about 1030 so I got back onto the tractor, dumped off the manure forks and went up to the pasture flooded out the worst this spring.  I needed to finish the ditch I started last summer and since there is still running water and a mud pit in the middle I need to get the water diverted to my front ditch.  So I spent a few hours creating a ditch and a berm.  My hope is that if the back creek jumps the bank again it will hit the berm and get diverted toward the back ditch.  I did this in both fields, even if they get flooded out it only floods 1/3 of each field instead of 1/2-2/3 of both fields.  The water started to really flow once I dug down a foot.  I will keep working on the berm for the next 2-3 years until I get it 3 feet high all the way across.  I can then plant some grass on it to help hold it in place.  My poor right wrist was getting tired from making the bucket dig, then shake the mud out then use the bucket to push me back out of the ditch.  It was a very nice day.  This field looks much better, last year at this time the entire field was covered in 7 foot tall thistles.  I need to spray again.

On Sunday I did get up sorta early, I was out spraying weeds by 0600.  I realize in farmer time this is late.  I sprayed the barn lot, the ram pasture and all of the field I had just dug the ditch in yesterday.  I really needed to get the hay put up so I can let the sheep and this years eating cows up into the green fields.

With that thought in mind I just decided to give making hay bales a try.  I hooked up and started the baler up.  It took me an hour to get the first three bales made.  The first two bales I could not get packed tight enough and could not get the netting to wrap correctly.  It kept going around a single roller.  I forgot my pocket knife and luckily found one in the tool bag we made for the baler.  It was so dull I am pretty sure it could almost pass as a safety knife.  I also had to remove the packed hay from the pickup tines.  After an hour I managed to get the netting to wrap the third bale.  The key reason it was not working was I was going too slow.  If I drove as fast as the tractor would go and got the hay feed jammed up the hay packed in well.  We ended up with 50 bales of gorgeous grass hay.  The best I have ever made, unfortunately it was only 50 bales.   Annmarie, Mr Professional and I went out and picked up the 50 bales in 30 minutes then loaded them into the barn.  We took the border collies with us and they killed four vole while we picked up hay.  I would love to have them when I cut the hay but I am afraid they would get too close to the sickle bar.  There are hundreds of voles running around when I cut.

Mr Professional has been working on getting our lavender garden planted.  The ground cloth is in, grid laid out, drip line installed and then he takes out 5 gallons of soil and replaces it with premium soil and sets the plant.  I managed to kill about half the plants from forgetting to water.  So we have an order in for next year to replace them.  The tire rubber bark is working out great!  I am looking forward to seeing it all done and in about three years the lavender will be approaching full size.

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I also cut out part of the flooded fence and then used the box blade to flatten the area and get it all prepped for new fencing.  We will install another breakaway point in the field cross fence if the water should break through my new ditch and berm.  I am hoping to get that fence done in the next two weeks.  Their our two alpaca that need shearing this upcoming weekend.

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Mechanic I am not

Steve Hardin2 Comments

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Since I was stuck home due to the quarantine and felt great finally, I decided to get some more farm work done.  The upper three fields need to be cut so they can be turned into hay.  The Upper Prime Squared field is going on its third year as a grass field and it looks great!  It is the best field we have and one I am aspiring to get the others to duplicate.   So I opted to start on it.  The real problem is it is still covered in some flood damage and I was unable to get it all cleaned up.  When I was using the sickle bar to cut the hay I kept running into the dirt/grass piles and it did not like this.  I had broken all three of my spare bolts when I realized I had only managed to cut 2/3 of the first field.  I spent an hour on the phone with the micro hay equipment company.  They did not have any of the needed bolts or parts.  The arm that had some cracked bearing casings had to come from Italy.  He did not know of anyone else that had broken theirs in the past so it was not on hand in the parts warehouse.  He is supposed to be getting me a quote from the Italian company.  I am starting to get desperate enough to look on Italian websites for the company and purchase my own spare parts cabinet.  I am just trying to figure out how to do it.  This may come as a necessary evil.  If anyone knows someone who can read Italian and knows about micro hay equipment, give me a holler.

So I am still on the hunt for 3-4 metal cabinets, one for herbicides, one for oil products, two for spare parts for the haying equipment.  I need to get organized.  I could not cut any more hay so I developed a plan for Annmarie to pick me up some bolts and nuts that I can weld a slant onto then grind them to some semblance of a cone.  Mind you I only have access to a wire fed welder and I never got to practice with a wire fed in my welding class, that was the next class.   Of course that night it rained 3/100 of an inch, me cutting hay so far this year has 100% rain predictability.

 

On Friday, I spent two hours welding and I use that term very loosely an approximation of a cone.  On half of them I welded directly next to bolt head and on the other half I sandwiched two bolt heads together and welded a small bead around the second nut.  I then ground all eight down to form a cone.  To get it to fit inside the hole I had to take some of the protective pieces off of the sickle bar.  I then had to figure out how to use an easy out to remove the broken bolt.  This  went on and on and on for a total of seven hours before I finally got it all back together.  It got greased very well, two zerks are missing and need to be replaced, I ordered them the day before from parts warehouse.  I started it up but there was still this weird clanging.  I went out and finished the last 1/3 of the field and made it one time around the second field before it broke again, 2 hours of run time only.  The arm part now has a deformed head and bearing which means I need a new part.  I am not a gracious mechanic.  There were lots of explicatives used throughout the day and some blood letting.  No more hay gets cut until I get a new part.

It was getting dark anyways.

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Predator wars on again

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Yesterday I got a late start and started mowing the fields at 0630.  I had plans to get out of bed at 0500 but that just did not happen.  I needed to mow the bottom four fields as they were getting covered in cheat grass and weeds.  The fields do better with a mow job.  I will spray them in a week or two.  I have a new seat for the tractor but I keep losing the bolts out of it.  I have lost two already.  I need some lock tight to go on the threads.  

The cows were hanging out by the school house and since I was on the tractor they just ignored me.  This allowed me to get a good picture and discover that Annmarie was right we do have new calves!  I found a second brand new calf.  So fairly soon we will need to run the cows back into the barn lot and tag and band.  I did not check to see whether they were a boy or girl.  I stopped around 1000 to load up 2.5 yards of prime sheep poop compost for a friend.  They left some fresh blueberries and an amazing sour raspberry jam.  The jam is so good I will need to get the recipe.  I managed to go all day until 1600 mowing without overheating the tractor!

I attribute this to two things, first thing was I blew all of the dust out of the radiator, inside engine compartment and even opened up the dust filter and cleaned off both filters.  The second thing was I figured out how to get the mower to ride parallel to the ground by lowering the back wheel allowing the cut grass to get out of the mower blades and not bogging the tractor down. This allowed me to go all day without killing the tractor once.  

I finished mowing around the machine shed today and then spent 45 minutes cleaning off the dust and weeds from the tractor and mower with water.  I want to finish pulling out the old flooded fence in the barn lot tomorrow.  I will need the box blade put on so it adds weight to the back of the tractor giving me the necessary traction.  

I also spent another 45 minutes cleaning out the back of the pickup with water so it is neat.  Annmarie wants me to pick up the antique rocker we purchased a couple of months ago and I need a clean bed for that to happen.  The real challenge will be keeping the pickup clean until then.  

The manure trade involved a young 3 month old rooster residing at our place.  He was running around with the hens yesterday.  I have not seen him at all today.  I am not sure he survived the night.  He probably did not go into the coop last night and is raccoon food.  I have another coworker who is looking to get rid of a couple of roosters, it may be time to give her a call.  The predator wars are definitely back on!

I have started clearing the lavender area again with a shovel.  It takes longer than I realize every time.  I spent three hours on it today and it needs another three hours.  Unfortunately, I did not water all the little plants consistently and there is some significant lavender die off.  I am back to watering every other day and we should know in a week how many actually survived.  This is totally my fault for not watering them more frequently.  

 

Auction score

Steve HardinLeave a comment

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So frustrating, my blog company is trying to get me into the 20th century and now wants to upgrade my editor abilities to include “blocks”, which as far as I can tell are snippets of information that are standalone and are inserted into your blog.  It looks cool, but it means everything is independent and instead of 3 choices I now have 30 and they can all be independently modified.  I tried it this morning and just got frustrated, it is looking like my blog time will triple and honestly I don’t have time for that, so I am back to the old archaic version until they force me to use the new, which I am sure they will eventually.  I had a cap on the pictures I could insert this morning so I will be attempting to do the blog more often as there appears to be a cap on how many pictures I can upload. Even with all of this and the changes I have still managed to keep this thing going for over 10 years now, which surprises even me!

On Sunday, we decided to forgo sleep and working on the farm and went to an estate auction.  The weather was cold, windy and very rainy at times.  Despite all of this we managed to buy some new living room furniture for $200 and a jewelry box for Annmarie that almost paid for itself when we took out the liner to oil all of the wood and discovered a little money hidden inside.  I found one of my favorite of all times auction finds an antique clothes drying rack.  These are far and few between and this one is in great shape.  I will get it all cleaned up with some soapy water and that is it as I don’t want oil to get on our clothes.  This thing is great!  I am going to mount it on the wall in the laundry room.  I was told by the lady who sells reproductions, for $40, that I must of really wanted it as she kept trying to outbid me for it but I really did want it.  After we got the furniture unloaded into the house we took a long nap as I had worked part of the previous night.  I was very tired after all of that and carrying the furniture inside and did not want to take the old furniture out as we had no place for it yet.  Now we still have two sets of living room furniture in our living room and dining room and I am on 14 day home/work quarantine, even Roomba can hardly get around.

When I got home on Monday the dogs were throwing a fit by the back corner of the front yard.  I went over to investigate and noticed that they were staring up into the tree, it was a squirrel!  Hopefully it was “the squirrel” that has been down at mother-in-law’s house.  I went inside, grabbed the 22 and dispatched said squirrel.  We cannot let them get established as they are incredibly hard on the power lines and transformers.  They are the number one reason for power outages in cities per the power line worker who I talked to when we lived in a city and lost power due to a squirrel.

On Tuesday we had more rain and Annmarie reiterated the “no carcass, no count” rule in our bid to eradicate the rockchucks.  It is a fair rule but it does make it a lot more challenging.  It does make it very clear cut, no subjective “I got it” interpretations are allowed.  I had held off on cutting hay on Saturday and now that it has rained twice I am glad I did.

On Wednesday, Annmarie called the shipping company to ask about our tire bark.  They have failed to deliver it twice already and have had it for two weeks.  I did feel a little sorry for the person on the other end of the line, but we did get our ground cover!  Five pallets, 5 ton should be enough to get all of the ground cloth covered up and secured in place.  Now we just have to install it all.  I spent part of the day trying to mow the weeds and grass around the place, I ended up overheating the tractor attempting to mow a thistle patch.  I will try it again early in the morning, not at high noon when its the hottest time.

On Thursday I was headed out of the house by 0445 to go to work and Gizmo was just ranting and barking at the front fence.  He would not come back in the house meanwhile the border collies were just running around the yard.  I got him to move a couple of feet and there were raccoons on the other side of the fence!  I ran back into the house and grabbed the 22 rifle.  I considered shooting from the porch but there is the fence, the cars the corral all in the way plus Gizmo is out there terrorizing them so they don’t come in his yard.  So as I ran up the pathway to get to the cars and the raccoons started running for the barn.  I only got two shots off just as they darted across the 16 foot gate opening at the end of the corral.  I missed, we didn’t even need to enact the no carcass, no count rule.  There were five of them!!  My chickens are not going to survive five raccoons.  So war is officially on again!  But the real question is do I get to start counting all the rodents we kill in on the predator kill count?  Is that cheating to just inflate the numbers?  I think it is so I will continue to only count animals that kill my chickens as this was the original definition of a predator.    When I got home Annmarie had me grab the binoculars and we drove up the driveway to look for a new baby calf she had spotted the day before.  Again,  we had given up on the last two cows having calves as it was just not happening so we had turned the bull loose a couple of weeks ago.  Sure enough there was a new baby calf out in the field.

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